On 8/13/2012 4:18 PM, Werner Flamme wrote:
j debert, 10.08.2012 18:28:
On 08/09/2012 10:02 PM, lynn wrote:
On 09/08/12 21:32, j debert wrote: /usr also held user directories, hence the name
"usr".
usr = Unix System Resources, it says here. . .
That may be correct. At least "officially". I vaguely recall hearing that definition of "usr". But system resources weren't kept in /usr originally.
I've heard from old fogie Unix engineers and sysadmins that /usr was called that because that's where all the users lived. I recall it being mentioned in an ATT Unix booklet as well. It also seems that three letter directory names were rather popular at the time. Unix minimalism, I guess.
Aye. There was no such thing as "/home". Home was place to go and live there, not a directory :-)
sco open server put home directories in /usr up until 5.0.5 or 5.0.6 but that was always a terrible terrible mess. I never tried to create a user named "lib" on a sco box but I wouldn't be surprised if the system allowed it and made exactly the mess you are now imagining. I think there was a system user named "bin" that was not login enabled and had no home directory defined so that one skates by on technicalities. ;) 5.0.6 or 5.0.7 finally shipped with a new default of /u, still not /home. Hardly any better since /u was a common place for countless 3rd party commercial apps to put their stuff. But at least by then there was a simple variable to edit in /etc/default/somethingorother and you could put /home instead of /u and all subsequent users would get created in /home. It's one of the few instances where I'll agree the historical way was not the result of greater wisdom and worth perpetuating. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org